


sorry we couldn’t make it (i miss you anyway)

by superoverdramatic



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Post-Season/Series 03, References to Depression, count how many times i change the spelling on rebe’s name, even when i intend to write fluff it turns into angst, it wasn't supposed to be this long but i have no self control, kind of a character study i guess idk, the endgame i deserved, they just love each other a lot okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23187376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superoverdramatic/pseuds/superoverdramatic
Summary: “I missed you,” he breathes against her lips, and she exhales tremulously against him.In which Guzmán waits for her.
Relationships: Guzmán Nunier Osuna/Nadia Shana
Comments: 48
Kudos: 348





	sorry we couldn’t make it (i miss you anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo, i literally cannot believe how long this got, it was a complete accident. i guess season three hurt my feelings more than i thought and now i'm back on my bullshit.  
> guzman was deadass the mvp of the season and this is more from his perspective bc my poor son just didn't deserve all that pain, and I wish he and nadia had gotten a more definitive ending.  
> song title from 'another lifetime' by nao, she’s amazing

_Guzmán is five when he proclaims confidently that Polo and Ander are his best friends. “And I’m yours,” he adds, hands planted firmly on his hips._

_Polo just smiles, running off with the other boys in their class to join their game, but Ander pauses, tilts his head and regards Guzmán for a long moment._

_“What does that mean?” he asks._

_Guzmán frowns, considering. “It means…” He trails off, thinking hard for a moment. “It means we’re gonna be friends forever.”_

_Ander is quiet, brows furrowed, and Guzmán can tell that he’s trying to figure out how long that is. Forever is a long time, until they’re at least eleven. Finally the other boy smiles, so wide that Guzmán can’t help the responding grin that spreads across his own face._

_“Okay.”_

_And that’s that._

It’s been less than a day since Nadia’s flight, but Guzmán thinks that he might have made a mistake letting her go.

He’s replayed her voice message enough times that it’s echoing in his ears, the crack in her voice, the heavy threat of tears in her tone, but he wishes he’d been able to see her face one last time before she left. If he could have just felt her beneath his palms, inhaled her scent, kissed her one last time, maybe he’d have had his fill of her, maybe he wouldn’t _ache_ so much with wanting her.

Maybe. But probably not.

He’d left Ander with Omar and his mother at the hospital, ashamed at the small knot of envy burning in his chest, but now he’s alone in a house that still feels too empty without his sister and nothing left of the girl he loves but her tinny voice through his phone speaker.

He hits play on Nadia’s voice message again, sprawled horizontally across the width of his bed, hand resting atop his chest and eyes squeezed shut, and tries to imagine what she’d be doing now, if her plane landed safely, if she’d be enjoying the new city.

His room fills with ringing and he goes to answer his phone but it’s his laptop, half-open on his desk, that lights up. The name that fills the screen has him up in seconds, self-pity forgotten.

_Nadia._

He fumbles to answer, anxious as the call connects, and then she’s there, smiling and beautiful and he feels sick with want but he’s also _so so_ proud of her and he can’t help his own slow smile.

“Guzmán,” she says and it’s a gut punch.

He breathes out her name, eyes roving over her face as if it’s been years instead of days since he last saw her, cataloguing minute details, the new room in her background, wavy tendrils of hair escaping her hijab, the happy stretch of her lips. For a moment neither of them speaks, just taking each other in.

“How are you?”

She’s so excited when she talks about New York, about how different it is and how much she can’t wait to start school, and it’s bittersweet and he wishes he could touch her, press his lips to hers and replace the taste of heartbreak in his mouth with her joy.

“Guzmán?” Nadia’s voice breaks through his reverie and her smile has slipped off her face. Guzmán curses himself for it.

“Sorry,” he says, raking a hand over his shorn head and trying for a smile, “I’m listening.”

Nadia’s own smile doesn’t return. “What’s wrong?”

He grinds his teeth, and he wants _so badly_ to unload his insecurities on her, to beg her to return to him because he doesn’t have his sister or his best friends and he _needs_ _her_ , but he doesn’t. He won’t be that selfish with her, not after what she’s achieved.

“Nadia,” he assures her, earnest and low. “I’m fine, I promise. I just miss you.”

She smiles, a small thing that he can see her try to fight back. “I miss you too.”

Guzmán rests his hand on his chin, just looking at her as she launches into a story about her first day in America, and he knows that he could try and hold onto her with blunt nails, with all the desperation within his body, but he takes in her smile and her promise rings in his ears and the insecure voice screaming in his head goes quiet. For now, it’s enough.

_Guzmán is six and a half and he falls off his bike and scrapes the skin off his knees and his elbow and both of his palms._

_Ander and Polo help him up and Polo starts crying immediately, the sight of Guzmán’s blood and raw, exposed flesh too much for him to bear. Guzmán bites down on his trembling bottom lip, swallowing past the lump in his throat and fighting back his own tears._

_The three boys pick up their discarded bikes and set off towards Guzmán’s house. He’s hobbling, leaning most of his weight on his handlebars, and he wishes he was at home so his mom would give him a hug and make his leg better._

_They make it back to his house quickly but there’s no one there when the three boys get inside. Guzmán has a hand clamped over his knee, but the blood is sticky between his fingers and trails of red spill over to soak the tops of his socks._

_He calls for his parents, runs from room to room, but there’s no response and he can’t stop himself from finally breaking down into gut-wrenching sobs. He half-stumbles back into the hall, cheeks reddened and damp with tears, and his friends take one look at him and follow him into the living room. Polo climbs on the couch beside Guzmán, but Ander disappears for a few minutes, reappearing with his backpack clutched in his hands._

_Polo wraps a hand around Guzmán’s shoulders, his own tears drying and a brave expression on his face, and Guzmán rests his head on his friend, blurred gaze following Ander as he sits on the floor in front of them and fishes around in his bag, pulling out a big bottle of water and a fistful of brightly coloured band-aids. Guzmán cries harder at the sting when Ander upends the bottle of cold water over his knee, dabbing clumsily at the cut with his sleeve and sticking a green plaster crookedly over it._

_His hands are abraded with gravel and Guzmán can’t stop shaking, can’t stop crying, and the two other boys wrap their short arms around him, encircling him tightly until he calms. His head feels stuffy and his leg hurts, but his best friends are here, and they help him breathe a little easier._

Guzmán’s nightmares return. His nights are plagued with tear-filled blue eyes, curly red hair, blood caked beneath his nails, and that first night after Nadia’s departure, he wakes in a cold sweat, frantically reaching for his phone and scrambling to pull up her number.

He’s halfway to hitting the call button when he suddenly catches himself, halting with his thumb poised over the screen. Panic claws at his throat, constricting his airways, and he just wants to hear her voice to calm him. But he doesn’t.

It would be so easy to be selfish, to hit Nadia’s name and let her soothe him, to put the emotional baggage of the deaths of two of the people closest to him onto her, to lean on her and let her prop him up, and Guzmán knows that she would let him without complaint, which is exactly why he forces himself to lock his phone and put it back down. He won’t be a burden to Nadia.

He gets a glass of water from the kitchen, rifling through his mother’s medicine cabinet until he finds a box of sleeping pills that she doesn’t know that he knows about. They’re all damaged after Marina. Guzmán takes one and downs his water, shuffling back to his bed and waiting for it to kick in. He plays Nadia’s message again while he waits for blissful nothingness to take him, falling asleep to the sound of her voice.

Yusef seems shocked when Guzmán turns up for his shift in the morning, regarding the younger boy with a raised eyebrow. If he notices Guzmán’s bruised under-eyes and slumped shoulders, he blessedly chooses not to comment, indicating a stack of boxed fruits with a jerk of his head and no probing questions. Guzmán throws himself into the work gratefully, stocking shelves, hauling produce and doing minor repairs around the store.

He works himself to exhaustion, but it does nothing to keep away the nightmares. He wakes that night with his legs twisted up in his sheets, a scream caught in the back of his throat and a hand already outstretched towards his phone. He wants with all his might to call Nadia, to banish the nightmarish images of dark curly hair soaked in blood and tanned brown skin turned ashen, but Guzmán pulls back, pushing himself up into a seated position and forcing himself to breathe, _in through his nose, out through his mouth._

His heart rate slows, but the panic doesn’t subside. His fingers itch to pick up his phone, and he’s so tired and weak that he almost does, almost makes the call that he so desperately wants to, but he catches himself, digging his nails into his palms until he thinks they might bleed. Nadia escaped all this, and he won’t drag her back into it. Never.

Instead, he brings his knees to his chest, counting the seconds and then the minutes and then the hours. The sun crawls into the sky and Guzmán’s eyes are dry and gritty. He drags himself up, enduring a cold shower to shock himself awake.

The weeks continue like this, and he starts filling his days as much as possible, throwing himself into mothering Ander, organising study sessions with Samuel and Rebeka, picking up more and more shifts at the shop. His nights consist of open textbooks, piles of hastily scrawled notes, a steadily building stack of used coffee cups, until he’s so sleep deprived that he can barely stand.

Nadia is the first to call him out on it, because of course she is, worry etched into the lines of her face as she tells him that he looks exhausted, that she’s proud of him for working on his grades but he needs to sleep, and he lies and tells her that he will, closing his eyes at the soft smile that stretches her lips when she returns his “ _I love you,”_ with one of her own, and, _fuck_ , he misses her.

Ander asks him why he’d want to spend all his time cooped up in the shop and Guzmán shrugs, pretends not to know, swallows the words dancing on the tip of his tongue that it makes him feel closer to Nadia, that even with their distrust, her parents are better to him than his own, that he needs to do something to distract himself from the fact that everyone he cares about dies.

Yusef looks at him like he’s a ticking bomb likely to go off at any time, and offers to cut Guzmán’s hours, but he assures Nadia’s father that everything is fine, that he’s just working hard to get into a good school and he can tell that the older man doesn’t fully believe him even as he nods in understanding. At the start of his next shift, Iman is working the register, and she approaches him when the mid-morning rush finally breaks.

“Guzmán,” she starts in that perpetually soft voice, placing a hand on his shoulder, “are you alright?”

He could say yes in the same practiced tone that he uses with everyone else, could angle his face away from her so she doesn’t see the bags under his eyes, but her expression is so earnest, so wide open and kind, that he’s shaking his head before he even realises it.

Iman wraps her hand more fully around his arm, tugging him along beside her as she shuts the front door, flipping the sign to ‘closed’, and taking him into the back, into the Shanaa’s home. She leads him into the tiny living room, sits him down on the couch, and Guzmán remembers the last time he was here, making a fool of himself for Nadia. He can’t help the small twitch at the corner of his lips.

Iman takes a seat beside him and she just looks at him, not speaking, not pushing, just waiting. After a long minute of silence, Guzmán swallows around the lump in his throat to croak out his words.

“I can’t sleep.”

Iman nods, taking his hand in hers, but still says nothing. Guzmán feels obligated to fill the quiet.

“I miss Nadia.” A pause, a hard swallow, and then, “It should have been me.”

“Guzmán,” Iman finally says, and he tries to blink away the burn of tears and shame. He shakes his head, making to pull his hands back, but Iman’s grip is tight, and she shifts ever closer.

“Guzmán,” and it’s not so soft anymore, “never.” She places a hand on his chin, turning his head and drawing his gaze to meet her own. “ _Never._ ”

He didn’t realise that his leg is bouncing, and the heel of his shoe tapping a beat against the carpeted floor, until it suddenly stills. Iman wraps him in a hug, and the smell of her is so familiar, so much like Nadia, that he just falls apart, clutching at her and sobbing into her shoulder. She’s so small under his hands, and she should feel fragile compared to his much larger stature, but she holds him to her fiercely and Guzmán hasn’t felt so protected in a long time.

“It’s okay,” Iman whispers. “You’re okay.”

And for the first time since Nadia left, he thinks he might believe that.

_Guzmán is eight and his parents are fighting._

_They don’t think he knows, think that he’s too young to recognise the pointed looks and whispered jabs, but Guzmán isn’t a little kid._

_He knows it’s only a matter of time until things explode, and he doesn’t have to wait long._

_In a moment, the house goes from pointedly silent to full of screaming, his mother’s shrill voice going up against his dad’s deeper shouts. Guzmán turns up the volume on his video game, drowning out the yelling with simulated gunfire._

_His door opens and Marina slips into the room. Her head is bent low, and her dark hair falls in tight spirals over her face. She’s holding a blanket in front of her small body, a fist clenched in the thick yellow material._

_Guzmán pays her no mind, eyes fixed on his game. The voices below ratchet up, and Marina stumbles further into the room, sniffling. Guzmán finally takes notice of his sister, glancing at her form out of the corner of his eye._ _Her cheeks are bright red, and her eyes are sparkling with tears. She isn’t looking right at him, but her bare toes are curled into the carpet, and he can see that she doesn’t want to leave. She looks terrified._

_Guzmán doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even turn to face her. He pauses his game, and then uses the remote by his thigh to change the settings on his television and find Marina’s favourite channel. They’re playing something stupid and childish; fairies clad in puffy pink skirts fly around on the screen, and it’s enough to make him nauseous, but Marina finally comes closer, climbing onto the bed beside Guzmán and folding herself into his side. He wraps an arm around her, not bothering to fight when sleep pulls at his eyelids._

_He wakes up later and the show has changed to something with singing. Marina’s attention is rapt on the screen, and the screaming has gone quiet. Guzmán asks her if she’s hungry, and she nods her head hard, curls bouncing wildly. He leaves his sister in his room, going in search of food._

_Guzmán’s dad is nowhere to be seen and his mom is pouring herself a drink from a bottle, something dark and red. She doesn’t immediately see him when he steps into the kitchen._

_“Mom?”_

_She turns her head, face brightening into a smile, and she’s blinking slowly like she’s sleepy. “Hi, baby.” She extends a hand and Guzmán goes to her, wrinkling his nose when she presses him into her. She smells weird._

_She lets him go, sipping on her red drink while he goes to the fridge to find something to eat._

_“What are you looking for, honey?”_

_“Marina is hungry,” Guzmán says, on his tiptoes to reach a container of leftovers at the back of the fridge. He gets a grip on it, dragging it out, and peers inside. It’s spaghetti. Marina should like that._

_“You take such good care of your sister,” his mom says, and the sentence come out funny, like she’s just saying one long word. Guzmán clutches the box against his stomach, escaping the kitchen without another word. His mom is being weird, and he doesn’t like it._

_Marina is ecstatic at their meal and is even happier when Guzmán realises he forgot forks and they’ll have to eat with their hands. He doesn’t want to go back down to the kitchen with his mom acting so strange._

_He shakes his head of his thoughts, unable to hold back a laugh when he looks up at Marina and she’s covered in sauce, holding a fistful of spaghetti in either hand. She’s so stupid._

Guzmán hates long-distance. Honestly, he isn’t even sure if this _is_ long-distance, doesn’t know how to define what he and Nadia really are, but he hates it, hates being so far from her, so removed from her world.

It’s why he loves days like this, when Nadia video calls him, leaving her laptop open while she studies, or unpacks more of her things, or watches a movie. It makes him feel like he’s there with her.

She’s sitting on her bed in her dorm room, legs crossed underneath her, and a thick textbook open in her lap, reading silently. Guzmán should be focused on his own work, but his eyes keep straying to the screen. His favourite thing is when Nadia is relaxed and comfortable in front of him. She’s wearing a pair of dark leggings, a big shirt that looks suspiciously familiar and her hair is piled atop her head in a riot of curls. The whole scene is just so _domestic_ , and he wants it to be like this forever.

He debates telling her all this, breaking the peaceful silence that they’re in, when there’s a sudden bout of shaky movements, Nadia lets out a muffled grunt, and then Lu is flopping into the frame.

“What are you doing?” Lu asks, more to Nadia than him he can tell, and then she sees him, and her eyes go bright. “ _Guzmán_ ,” she says in that sly way she does that spells trouble for him. “Are you guys having Skype sex?”

“ _Lucrecia_ ,” Nadia gasps, scandalised, and there are more jerky movements before she reappears back in front of the screen. Lu returns moments later, flopping over Nadia’s shoulder, her curtain of long hair draping over Nadia’s arm. She’s grinning mischievously, but her smile fades into a grimace and an eyeroll when she spies Guzmán’s books laid out in front of him.

“ _Boo_ ,” she crows, “you’re both so boring.”

“It’s good to see you too, Lu.”

“Since when did you care about grades?”

Guzmán shrugs, and Lu flips him off, smacking a kiss to Nadia’s cheek as she pushes up and off her.

“I’m going out,” she calls, disappearing off screen, and the sound of a door clicking moments later tells Guzmán that he and Nadia are alone.

“Sorry about that,” Nadia says, resting her chin in her hand, “you know how she is.”

Guzmán grins, shaking his head, and turns back to his book. He scribbles down another sentence, not realising Nadia is considering him until she starts talking again.

“She’s right though.”

He looks up, curious. “Who?”

Nadia huffs out a breath. “Lu. She’s right that you never cared about your grades before.”

Guzmán drops his pen into his open book. “I didn’t care about a lot of things before.”

She shoots him an unimpressed look. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t want to have this conversation like this, wanted to wait to maybe have it face-to-face, but it doesn’t look like she’s letting it go. He runs a hand through his hair. “Is it so bad that I’m working hard?”

“Of course not.” Nadia pushes her book of her lap and drags her laptop into its place. “I just want to be sure that you’re doing this for yourself, and not because…” She trails off, but Guzmán knows what she wants to say.

_Not because of me._

_Not because you’re scared of losing me._

_Not because you don’t trust how much I love you._

He takes a deep breath. “I want to be with you, Nadia.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but he stops her.

“Just wait, let me say this.”

Her mouth snaps shut.

“I want to be with you. I want to come to America and be with you, and I want you to achieve your goals without me holding you back. But apart from that,” he runs his hand over his head again, nervous, “I want to achieve my goals without holding _myself_ back. I can do this. I _want_ to do this. And I want to do it with you.”

She’s looking so intensely at him that for a moment, Guzmán thinks she’s angry, scared that she’ll tell him that she doesn’t want him there with her and she’s changed his mind. But she doesn’t.

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

He opens one of the drawers in his desk, pulling out the New York University brochure that he’s been holding onto for weeks and nodding in assent. “It’s all I think about.”

She’s quiet, contemplative, and Guzmán watches a host of emotions play across her face, and then suddenly she’s smiling and the pressure in his chest lets up. They talk for what feels like hours about his plan, all of his options, all of the ways it could go wrong, until it feels like they have something definitive and she’s looking at him with that soft expression that he loves.

“So,” she says.

“So.”

“Ten months.”

He grins, feeling excitement buzz under his skin. “Ten months.”

_Guzmán is twelve, with gangly limbs and spotty skin, and he loves it here, in this pool where there is nothing but his own thoughts and the beating of his heart._

_His arms cut through the water with ease, and he flips beneath the surface, pushing against the side of the pool to propel himself forward, and it feels like flying, like he’s suspended in time._

_None of his problems matter down here, none of them even exist, not the growing animosity between his parents that they no longer bother to hide, not Marina’s rebellious streak, not his mother’s increasing collection of empty wine bottles stashed around the house._

_He gets to the other end of the pool. Flips. Pushes off._

_He’s the best swimmer in his class. The coach wants him to join the swim team and he thinks he’d be good at it. He thinks it would be good for him. And he loves it here._

_He gets to the other end. Flips. Pushes off._

School starts and Guzmán goes to class and his grades are good, better than they’ve ever been, but he still can’t sleep, and he’s started taking a sleeping pill from his mother’s not-so-secret stash every night.

He walks with Ander to their classes, sits beside Samuel during lessons, eats lunch with his friends, and things are good.

He goes home and there’s no one there; his father works more than he doesn’t, and his mother decided that she needed a break from their family after finding out that Marina was killed by a close friend, and that’s good too. Guzmán doesn’t need them.

He calls Nadia, but she doesn’t pick up, and that isn’t as good, but he understands that she must be busy, and he doesn’t let it get to him.

He’s getting a head start on his history essay when the doorbell chimes. He’d ignore it, but there isn’t anyone else to answer it, and whoever it is is holding the button down so that the constant ringing almost drives him to insanity. He shoves his seat back and stomps heavily to get the door.

“ _What?_ ”

“Woah, man, chill.”

Guzmán stares. Rebeka grins cheekily. She finally lets go of the bell.

Behind her, Omar and Ander are carrying armfuls of takeout and Samuel is bringing up the rear, still in his uniform and holding a stack of books. Rebeka pushes past Guzmán and strides into his house without waiting for an invitation.

“Come in,” he mutters, sarcastic, “make yourself at home.”

Ander follows her inside, pushing the bags of food at Guzmán. “Thanks, bro.”

Omar goes in after him, and then Samuel, offering a sympathetic pat on the arm.

“They wanted to keep you company.”

Guzmán rolls his eyes, pretends to scoff, but there’s a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. He follows Samuel into the living room where Rebeka, Ander and Omar have settled in, depositing the spread of food, textbooks and discarded jackets around the room. Guzmán kicks a stray leg out of his way, dropping the remainder of the food on the table and excusing himself to get his own books.

They spend more time tearing into the food and laughing about inside jokes than they do working, and excluding Ander, who texts his mother to let her know where he is, none of them have parents waiting for them at home so they elect to stay the night. Guzmán ransacks the rooms in the house for pillows and blankets, offering Rebeka his bed, who in turn sends him a glare poisonous enough to kill as she snatches a sheet from him and curls up on one of the couches.

Guzmán takes a space on the floor next to Samuel, curling an arm beneath his head.

“Are you okay?”

Guzmán goes to say yes, turning his head to meet Samuel’s eyes, but there’s something in the other boy’s gaze that tells him that he sees right through him. He shrugs instead and looks back up at the ceiling.

“Same.”

They’re silent for a moment, listening to the soft breathing from the other occupants of the room.

“I’m getting out of here,” Guzmán whispers, as if divulging a secret. “The first chance I get. I’m getting out of here before this place kills me too.”

Samuel hums, a contemplative sound. “You’re going to New York, right?”

Guzmán’s head whips to him, and Samuel smiles genially.

“You’re so obvious, man.”

More silence.

“You could leave too.” Guzmán sits up a little, looking down at his friend. “After we graduate. What’s left for you here?”

Samuel shakes his head. “I could never afford that.”

They both know that isn’t quite true, that there’s another reason, another _blonde_ reason, that he doesn’t want to leave Madrid. _Just in case_.

Guzmán is still awake when the others stir in the morning surrounded by their discarded food containers, and everyone is grumbling about a different body part. He fumbles with the coffee machine in the kitchen while Samuel does his best to clean up around them and Rebeka, Ander and Omar snack on the remains of their takeout and alternate using his shower.

Guzmán curses the shitty coffee maker, slapping it with the flat of his palm when it won’t come on.

“If we get to school early, we can eat out the bacon supply at the breakfast bar,” Ander offers when Guzmán returns to the living room empty handed, and the rest of them cheer loudly, and Guzmán realises that he’ll love these guys forever.

_Guzmán is thirteen and Marina is tugging him onto the dancefloor at one of their father’s stuffy parties. He tries to shake her off, embarrassed as the eyes of some of the adults turn to them, but she ignores his protests, laughing loud and free, and ignoring the disapproving gaze of their parents._

_Marina wraps her arms around his neck, standing on her toes to reach. Guzmán keeps his arms by his side, tense and refusing to give in even as his sister drags him around in a circle. She isn’t concerned by the music being played by the live band, humming her own tune and spinning herself in circles. The lights above dance off her dress, a sparkly thing that their mom picked out and Marina complained about for an age. Guzmán opted not to say anything when he caught her admiring it in the mirror later._

_He can feel people watching the pair of them, hear the low chuckles at their expense, and his skin flushes bright red. Still, he lets Marina have her way, twirling with her despite the scowl on his face. Marina just laughs, a bright thing that draws more eyes their way, and Guzmán can only cringe._

_“I swear, one of these days I’m going to kill you,” he says through gritted teeth._

_Her eyes sparkle, mischievous, and her smirk is wicked. “You promise?”_

The bouquet was a bad idea.

Guzmán had asked Ander what he thought he should get Nadia to welcome her home, but he feels stupid standing awkwardly in the middle of the airport clutching a handful of crumpled forget-me-nots in his clammy hands.

The clock on the arrivals board ticks forward and Guzmán’s anxiety skyrockets as Nadia’s flight status rolls over from ‘on time’ to ‘arrived’. His hand tightens where it’s gripping the flowers, and he doesn’t realise that he’s on the verge of hyperventilating until a hand clamps down on his shoulder. Yusef offers him a sharp nod, and Guzmán wills his heart to slow down.

Five minutes turns to ten, and Guzmán decides to dump the flowers in a nearby trashcan after his clenched fists crush their stems. Fifteen minutes after her flight lands and he’s trying not to pace, eyes fixed firmly on the gate, until suddenly, Lu appears dragging her suitcase and then—

—she’s there.

Guzmán doesn’t realise that he’s stopped breathing until his lungs start to scream and he expels the air in a sharp hiss. It’s only been four months, a single semester, but he’s starved for her like it’s been years. His nerves have fled, replaced only with excitement, so much that he’s practically vibrating with it.

Nadia is running from the gate straight into the open arms of her parents, and Omar appears from somewhere to pile on top of her. Sudden panic sets in, and Guzmán thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have come, that this moment should be for her and her family and he should have just met her at the shop, but then Omar is looking up at him with a reassuring smile, whispering something to his parents, and they’re pulling away from Nadia with quiet words and frantic kisses, and suddenly she’s looking over at him.

Through the giddy haze that settled over him, Guzmán registers that her family have stepped away, crowding around Lu now instead. He realises, in some distant, shocked way, that they’re giving them some privacy, a moment together after so long apart, but he can’t move, feet rooted to the spot. He can’t believe that she’s _here_ , right in front of him.

The shock only lasts for a heartbeat before he’s rushing forward, before she’s meeting him halfway and they’re colliding in the middle.

“Nadia,” he gasps, and he’s crying, stooping low to press his face into her neck. He wraps his arms around her, hugging her tightly to himself until there’s no space left between them

Her lips brush his damp cheek, the soft drag of skin as she slides her nose over to meet his own. They breathe each other in, _once, twice_ , and his head spins, intoxicated by her.

“I missed you,” he breathes against her lips, and she exhales tremulously against him. Her lips just barely brush against his before she’s pulling back, the promise of _more_ in her eyes as she turns to seek out her family, and he registers that they’re all still there and they’re standing in the middle of a crowded airport. Omar is sniggering into the back of his hand.

Guzmán piles into the Shanaa’s car after Nadia, the lengths of their bodies pressed together, and he probably has some room to give her space, but he doesn’t want to. Her hand slips into his and squeezes.

Lu is staying in Omar’s old room above the shop, so he and Guzmán help the girls get their things inside. Nadia expresses her thanks with a chaste kiss, close-lipped and quick, but it’s enough to knock Guzmán for six. He distantly registers that it’s their first kiss in almost half a year.

Omar doesn’t stay very long, wanting to get back to check on Ander, and, against his entire body screaming at him to stay, Guzmán leaves soon after. He doesn’t want to monopolise Nadia’s time or overstay his welcome.

His house is empty when he gets back, as always, but after seeing Nadia, touching her, _kissing her_ , it somehow feels worse. He turns on his television, leaves it on a random movie that’s showing to cut through the silence. He could get started on some homework, but he doesn’t think he could concentrate long enough.

The doorbell rings.

Guzmán hits pause on the TV, making for the door in quick strides. He isn’t expecting anyone. It’s all the more shocking when Nadia is on the other side.

“You left,” she says, and she sounds upset.

“Nadia-”

“We haven’t seen each other in four months, and you left?”

“I thought-”

“Did you change your mind?” she asks, and it’s so quiet and sad that it makes Guzmán feel sick.

“Never,” he says, voice scratchy, seizing her wrist in his grip. “Nadia, that will never happen. I just…didn’t want to bother you. I thought you would want time alone with your family.”

Her expression turns unreadable for a second, and then she slaps him in the chest. “You’re an idiot.”

Guzmán nods. “Yes.”

And then Nadia is on her tiptoes, lips pressed to his, and he realises that she’s kissing him. He presses close, dragging her closer, and his arms band around her waist, and it’s still _so good_ , kissing her.

Nadia presses him backwards, lips still on his, and he stumbles over his own feet. He faintly hears the door slam shut, but there’s nothing important enough to distract him from the taste and feel of her.

They finally pull back from each other, and they’re both panting. Guzmán’s heart is thundering in his chest like he’s been training. Nadia is looking up at him, eyes dilated, and he still can’t quite believe she’s there. Her skin is flushed, and her mouth is swollen. He brushes another kiss, barely there, to her lips, and then another and another, until they’re both breathless.

“Show me your room,” she whispers, and Guzmán almost swallows his tongue.

“Nadia,” he breathes, lips hovering mere millimetres from hers, “are you sure?”

She swallows hard, nods, slips her hand into his. Anticipation tightens Guzmán’s muscles, and he feels like he’s barely breathing as he guides Nadia to his room.

They stand at the foot of his bed, pressed together, and the look in Nadia’s eyes—trusting, loving, open—locks his knees, sending him falling helplessly onto the edge of his mattress.

Nadia smiles above him, slender fingers reaching for the top button of her shirt.

“Nadia,” Guzmán whispers, eyes fixed on the movement. His nerve endings crackle with electricity. She reaches for the second button, and he makes a rough sound, deep in his throat.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, and she nods. He lifts a shaking hand to curve around her hip, drawing her between his knees, and looks up at her. The light slanting into the room through his open blinds dances along the curls loose about her head, and his grip on her tightens, desperate with how much he wants her. It’s their first time since the locker room, since that cursed tape that almost destroyed everything, and he’s scared to touch her but he can’t physically keep from reaching for her.

Nadia’s hands don’t tremble. She undoes the third button.

_Guzmán is fourteen and he knows that Lu likes him as more than a friend. Since he joined the swim team and started developing muscles, his classmates have started to take notice. It makes him feel good, makes him hold his head higher in the halls when he knows that other people want what he has._

_A few years ago, a girl like Lu wouldn’t have looked twice at him. Now she’s got her hand on his thigh under the table, edging it up into dangerous territory every time the teacher turns his back. Guzmán_ _bites back a smirk, reclining a little in his seat and goading her on with a raised eyebrow._

_And if his sister ignores him in the halls, and tells him she thinks he’s becoming a shitty person, and if Ander tells him that he misses the old him and Polo says that he wishes things would go back to how they used to be, well, he tries not to let it bother him._

Nadia’s nails rake through Guzmán’s growing hair in a soothing, regular rhythm, and he’s halfway to sleep for the first time in weeks.

“Can I ask you something?” she murmurs into the silence, and Guzmán blinks tiredly at her. He hums lowly, cheek resting on her chest.

“Did you tell my mom that you wished you were the one who died?”

Guzmán’s blood runs cold. He pushes off Nadia, but she follows his movement, sitting up and pulling on the sheets to cover herself. Guzmán avoids her gaze, not wanting to see the pity in her eyes. The soft afterglow has been replaced by a painful tension.

Nadia places a hand on his arm. “Tell me. Please?”

He looks down at the contrast of their skin, hers a smooth brown, his paler and covered in freckles. He doesn’t want to talk about this.

“ _Please?_ ”

Fuck.

He finally looks at her, and she looks sad, but he doesn’t read pity in her eyes. It would be so easy to lie to her again, play it off like it’s nothing, just like he has been for months, but she’s here and he loves her and there’s no point in lying when they both already know the truth.

He nods.

Nadia shifts closer to him, hand tightening around his arm, and rests her chin on his shoulder.

“Do you want to end this?”

“ _What?_ ” He pulls away to look at her better, a sick feeling building in his stomach.

Nadia doesn’t quite let go of him even as he shifts his body away from her. There are tears in her eyes, and her bottom lip quivers. “I don’t want to keep hurting you, Guzmán. If long-distance is making you feel like this…” she inhales, wiping at her eyes.

“Nadia,” he croaks out, and his throat hurts as if the words are barbs, piercing him. “If that’s what you want, I’m not going to stop you,” he starts, and she opens her mouth to speak but he isn’t done yet.

“I’m tired,” he says, shaking his head, and he doesn’t realise until he says it how true the statement is. “I’m tired physically, and emotionally, and I’m tired of going slow and being careful and both of us running in the wrong direction. So, if you want to end this, I won’t stop you. But you won’t be doing it for me, because I’ve never stopped loving you and I never will.”

It’s hard to swallow, and his jaw is clenched tightly, but then Nadia presses the tips of her fingers to his chin and leans into him.

“Okay,” she whispers against his lips, curving her body around him, and she follows him as he falls back against the mattress, knees going to either side of his hips. “Okay.”

Nadia is home for two more weeks, and Guzmán spends as much time with her as is humanly possible. She spends a few nights with him, and each morning he can see the disappointment in her eyes when she realises that he still hasn’t slept. They don’t talk about it, though.

He cooks for her, and they go on long drives, and they hang out with their friends, and alone, and he counts down the days until they’re standing in the airport waiting for her flight to start boarding. Lu has gone ahead to the gate to give them some time alone, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to do this, how he’s meant to let her go again.

Nadia is tucked under his chin, arms banded around his waist, and they just breathe each other in.

“Six and a half months,” she mumbles into the front of his shirt, quiet enough that he’s not even sure if he was meant to hear.

“Six and a half months,” he whispers against the top of her head.

She looks up at him, the corners of her lips turned down, and he wishes that she wouldn’t because it makes him want to hold her to him even tighter.

“You’ll be okay?”

He knows what she’s really asking, and he’s not sure if he can make that promise, so he says nothing. She nods sadly.

“Maybe,” she shifts in his arms, “maybe you could try talking to someone.”

“Like therapy?”

She nods. He grips her tight, mouth already forming an excuse, but she cuts him off with a chaste kiss.

“I just want you to be okay, Guzmán.”

Her words play on his mind even after she kisses him goodbye, even after he watches her plane take off and drives himself home. His mom is there, pressing a kiss to the side of his face, and he can’t get Nadia’s words out of his head.

“Mom,” he says, keeping his gaze and tone steady even though his heart is in his throat. “I think I need help.”

_Guzmán is fifteen and his hands are slick with blood. Pablo isn’t moving. He feels Ander and Polo’s horrified gazes on the side of his face. His chest burns with rage._

Guzmán, _he hears Marina’s voice in his head_ , what have you done?

_It’s out of love, he tells himself as he drives his fist harder into the other boy’s face._

_He repeats it to himself as Pablo loses consciousness, as he drags himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall, smearing red against the stark white tile._

_He repeats it to himself as he turns to meet the horrified stares of his best friends, as he takes a step in Ander’s direction and the other boy flinches back._

_“Guzmán,” Ander whispers, eyes darting between his friend and the bloody mess that he’s made of Pablo, “what have you done?”_

Guzmán’s first session with his therapist is mostly silent. There are so many things he wants to say, and none that he can bring himself to voice to a certified stranger. Emilio is a middle-aged man who asks generic questions and scrutinises Guzmán over the rim of his glasses for most of the hour. It’s awkward.

The second is better. Emilio drops the overly cheerful act and talks to Guzmán like a normal person. Conversation moves a bit easier. Guzmán confesses about the sleeping pills, and he expects judgement but there is none. He thinks he might be able to do this.

The third session is painful, and leaves Guzmán feeling stripped bare. Emilio asks how he’s been coping since Polo’s death, and Guzmán tells him about the nightmares. _Does he have any support from his family?_ He thinks his parents might be breaking up, he says. _Why?_ That’s a long story.

“We have time,” Emilio replies, twirling his pen between his fingers.

“You probably heard it all on the news.”

“I’d like to hear about it from you anyway.”

So he starts to tell him about Marina, how she was always getting in trouble and he’d have to bail her out of it—

“Why did you feel like you had to?” Emilio asks.

“Because she was my little sister. It was my job to protect her.”

—and how the few times he’d taken a step back, she’d gotten hurt, and then worse. He tells him about Polo, his best friend who had cried when Guzmán had fallen off his bike as a kid and cut his leg, who had always hated scary movies because of the blood and gore and who had killed his sister.

He talks through his guilt, and his anger, and he tells Emilio things that he couldn’t tell anyone else, bares his soul and admits that he thinks he may have betrayed Marina by giving Polo forgiveness as he died, and his heart pounds in the cage of his chest as he reveals his private shame, the dark, ugly thoughts that he hides. It’s a relief, like a burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

He starts sleeping, and it feels like a breakthrough. The nightmares don’t disappear immediately, but more often than not, he gets at least four hours a night.

He’s been seeing Emilio for almost three months when he lets slip that he still has a box of Marina’s things sitting untouched in his bedroom.

“What do you plan to do with it?”

Guzmán doesn’t know how to answer, so he says nothing. His chest burns hot.

“Do you think it’s healthy to hold onto those things, Guzmán?”

He knows the answer that he’s looking for. Everyone, his parents, his friends, they’ve all asked him to get rid of Marina’s things, but he can’t. Letting those things go is like letting his sister go, like telling her that she is no longer important, and she is. She’s one of the most important people in his life, and she always will be. He doesn’t say any of that, though.

“Guzmán,” Emilio sighs, taking off his glasses and holding them loosely in one hand, “I’m not here to tell you what to do, or scold you if I don’t agree with you. I just want to help.”

He knows. He says that.

“Why don’t you just try unpacking the box. Don’t worry about getting rid of anything, just try sorting through it. Maybe there are some things you’d like to keep.”

And that seems manageable.

Guzmán sits down in front of Marina’s box when he gets home, but Emilio’s request seems much _less_ manageable when he can’t even bring himself to open it.

His laptop chimes and he uses it as an excuse to escape, picking up the incoming video call from Nadia immediately.

“What’s wrong?” she asks as soon as the call connects, and he’d ask how she knows but he can see his face in the corner of the screen, and it’s obvious. Nadia looks over his shoulder and sees Marina’s box. “Guzmán,” she whispers, and then nothing else.

He scrubs angrily at his eyes, at the tears that gather there, and turns his face away from her. “It’s nothing.”

Neither of them talks, but he feels her eyes on him, and he could end the call, shut his laptop, shut her out, but why would he when he loves her?

“Guzmán,” Nadia tries again.

He takes a deep breath in, and the breath out is a sob. Nadia is silent as he weeps for his dead sister and his dead friend who killed her, and it’s more than grief. It’s release, letting go of the pent-up emotions and trauma of the past year.

He cries until there aren’t any more tears, and when he looks up, Nadia is so close to her screen that he could almost reach out and touch her. But he can’t.

“Guzmán,” she says a third time, and he understands. She wants to remind him that she’s there, that she’s with him even with an ocean between them. He nods, once, twice, three times and steels himself. And then he turns back to the box.

The first thing that hits him is the familiar scent of Marina’s perfume, indelible in her clothes. There are a handful of pictures tossed haphazardly on top, some in frames, and he recognises them from Marina’s room, pictures of her, them, from when they were little kids and as they got older. He traces the lines of his sister’s face, and he crumples the edge of the photo with how tight he’s gripping it.

Nadia is still watching quietly as he stands, crossing the room to place the frames at the head of his bed. He looks to her, and she smiles encouragingly, eyes glittering and swimming with tears. She looks proud.

By the time he’s sorted through about half of her box, Marina’s things are scattered throughout his room, her favourite jacket slung over the back of his door, her bright blue earphones perched on a shelf, an array of nail polish lined up on his desk.

He feels exhausted, closing the box on the rest of her things and pushing it into the bottom of his closet. And then he takes a deep breath. Nadia beckons him over to his computer when he looks at her, wiping quickly at the happy tears that spill over and leave tracks on her cheeks.

“I love you,” she whispers when he sits down, and even with his heart still raw and aching, it makes him smile.

_Guzmán is sixteen and he fucks Lu because she’s available, because she wants him, because she’s pretty and strokes his ego and they’re so alike in almost every way._

_Love is the last thing on his mind when he pins her up against the wall, turning her away from him so that he doesn’t have to look into her eyes and see the hope sparkling there._

_He closes his eyes, presses his face into the back of her neck, tries not to envision the blood that had covered the walls of this very shower, the crunch of bone as he drove his fist into the face of a boy that had made the fatal mistake of touching his sister._

_He pushes harder against Lu, and she’s being too loud considering they’re in the school, but he doesn’t bother to say anything. It’s over quickly, nothing more than a release for him, but Lu is smiling, and he should stop fucking her, stop giving her false hope that will only hurt her in the end, but he won’t._

_She reaches for him. He pulls away._

_This isn’t love._

The end of the school year comes by in a rush of exams, college applications and scholarship essays. Emilio tells Guzmán that he’s proud of him and how far he’s come, and it feels good.

The morning of his graduation is hectic. His parents are both home and his mother won’t stop fussing over him, messing with his hair, adjusting his tie, tugging on his jacket. She wants pictures, videos, and Guzmán doesn’t complain. He can see the pain that still lingers behind her eyes, and if this helps her feel better then he’ll do it all day.

He calls Nadia before they’re due to depart but she doesn’t pick up. She’d told him that she had an exam, but he’d hoped to catch her beforehand. It’s not a big deal though. Really.

His dad appears as they’re getting ready to go, and he’s holding an envelope in his left hand that he extends towards Guzmán with a smile. The ‘NYU Stern’ stamped on the front catches his eye, and his heart is suddenly racing.

He goes to open it. Stops. Looks between his smiling parents. Tries to open it again. Stops.

“ _Guzmán_ ,” his mom cries out, half laughing.

He’s terrified of what’s inside, terrified because this feels heavier than just an average acceptance or rejection letter. It feels like the contents of this envelope will determine more than just his next few years, but the entire rest of his life. And Nadia’s.

A hand lands on his shoulder, and his mom’s smile is gentler. “Whatever’s in there, we’re proud of you. And she will be too.”

She doesn’t say a name, and he thinks she could be talking about Nadia, but her sad eyes tell him that there’s someone else on her mind, and she’s right.

He tears open the envelope.

He gets through half of the first sentence, barely reads past the _Dear Mr Nunier Osuna, NYU Stern is pleased to offer you an Undergraduate scholarship_ — before he’s throwing his hands up and they’re all screaming and laughing and hugging.

Graduation passes in a happy blur, and before he knows it, Guzmán is holding his diploma, lining up with Samu and Ander and Omar and Rebeca, and their parents are all aiming cameras at them while the small group laugh and jostle with each other.

One or all of the parents call out to them, begging them to keep still, smile, _stop flipping the camera off, Rebeca_ , and the day is so close to perfect that he almost forgets that the one person he wants to see isn’t here. But it’s not a big deal.

There’s a break in photographs, and he’s messing with his tie and he doesn’t realise that something is going on until he looks up and everyone is staring at him.

“What?”

Or not at him. Behind him.

Guzmán turns, and Nadia is smiling at him, and he must be seeing things because she’s meant to be in an exam right now.

“I lied,” she says, and he realises that he said all that out loud. And then he realises that she’s right there and he’s wasting time not touching her.

“How-” he stutters when his arms are full of her and his face is buried in the crook of her neck. “What are you doing here?”

“I wasn’t going to miss this,” she grins, pressing a kiss to the bottom of his chin, and she’s the love of his life.

Nadia steps away from him, going to greet her parents while his snap a few last pictures of him, but his eyes track her and he barely lasts two minutes before he’s shifting through the crowd to get at her. Guzmán restrains himself a little, not wanting to embarrass Nadia in front of her parents, and kisses her quickly, contenting himself by tugging her into his side and nosing at her temple. He’ll have time to get his fill of her later.

She’s only back for a few days, managed to finagle a long weekend to come out to see him, but she has to be back at school by the start of next week. Nadia kisses him long and hard in the departure lounge, murmuring a soft “ _three months_ ” against his lips.

Three months. That’s no time at all.

_Marina was sixteen and now she isn’t. Now she’s dead._

_Guzmán loves it here, in this pool where he finally felt good at something._

_Where he first met the girl he loves._

_Where all his troubles seem to just melt away._

_He looks around at his classmates, laughing and splashing in the pool. He could join them, but he opts not to, dunking his head underwater and holding himself there. There’s no sound, nothing but his heart beating in his ears, like always._

_Guzmán loves it here._

_He closes his eyes. A body lies prone on the tile floor, dress sparkling in the moonlight. The pool water runs red with blood._

_Correction. He loved it here._

Guzmán is standing at his gate waiting for the call for passengers to board. His mother presses a kiss to the side of his face, and he wraps his arms around her fully. She wasn’t always a perfect parent, wasn’t even always a good one, but being in her arms still makes him feel like that little kid who wanted to crawl into her lap and hide from the rest of the world.

Instead, he squeezes her tighter.

His father steps closer when Guzmán lets go of his mom, and they regard each other for a moment. He looks closely at his dad, and it would be so easy to hate him, to blame him and push him away after what happened to Marina, but he doesn’t. Ventura looks tired, frail, and if there’s one thing Guzmán has learned over the past year and a half, it’s that life is too short. So he hugs his dad, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, and if it’s a little uncomfortable, he can deal with that.

Samuel and Ander appear from nowhere, flinging their arms around his neck, and then Rebeka and Omar are there, joining the group hug. When he finally gets out from beneath them all, Yusef and Iman are waiting with happy smiles, and they take turns hugging Guzmán and there’s a lump in his throat.

The boarding call for his flight comes, and Guzmán presses one last kiss to his mom’s temple, swiping at the tear that runs down her cheek, and waves goodbye to his rowdy friends as he goes.

He starts towards the check-in desk, passport and ticket in hand, when he’s hit with a sudden bout of anxiety, so strong that it almost knocks him over. His hands tremble, and he can’t make his feet move.

He can’t get on the plane.

His phone vibrates, then, in his pocket. He digs it out with trembling fingers, heart slamming so hard against his ribs that he feels nauseous.

It’s from Nadia, a simple _I love you_ , and it’s as if she knew, as if she read his mind and knew exactly what he needed.

He inhales a breath, and then another, and his riotous emotions settle and he’s ready. He’s _been_ ready for the better part of two years to start his life with Nadia, and it’s finally happening. He walks onto the plane. No more waiting.

And then they’re in the air, and with every mile it feels like he’s breathing easier. By the time they land, there are no nerves left, no fear, just anticipation, and all roads have led him here, to _Nadia_. He’s through baggage claim and airport security quickly, and then he steps out into the hectic airport, and he can’t see her even though he could have sworn they agreed to meet here.

“ _Guzm_ _án_ ,” he hears, and he turns in time to catch Nadia as she throws herself bodily into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist. “You’re here,” she mumbles, words muffled by his shoulder, and he slides his hands into her hair, kisses the tip of her nose, breathes her in, and it feels like the first real breath he’s taken since she left him on that sidewalk outside the club.

“I’m here.”

_Guzmán is seventeen and he wants to be with Nadia._

_He wants, he wants, he wants, like a physical ache in his chest. It’s torturous, being so close to something that he wants so badly and not being able to have it. She passes his locker, and she doesn’t even look at him, doesn’t flinch the way_ _he does whenever she’s nearby. He screwed it up, he knows it’s his fault they’re like this now. His promise to her dad was stupid and made in a moment of sheer desperation because he’d rather she be at Las Encinas and out of his reach than gone for good._

_But it wasn’t worth it. So now he watches. And he wants._

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, and it’s the only thing of hers that he allows himself to bring as he starts a new life. His time with Emilio has taught him that holding onto Marina’s physical possessions isn’t what makes her meaningful to him, that it’s just stuff. That he’ll always be a brother, even if he no longer has a sister.

His first year in New York, Guzmán keeps the picture pinned above his narrow single bed, pride of place, and by the end of the year, it’s surrounded with pictures of Nadia and Lu and the new friends he makes, but it remains his favourite even if some days it still hurts to look at her smiling face, and some nights she still haunts his dreams.

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, and he takes it down and folds it into his wallet when he moves out of his shitty dorm and into the equally shitty apartment that he, Nadia and Lu are going to share. It should be weird to live with his ex and current girlfriends, but it feels more like family than he’s felt in a long time and he’s grateful to have them.

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, and he has it with him when Samuel, Rebeca, Ander and Omar finally save enough to come out to New York, and when they join he, Nadia and Lu at their favourite breakfast place, and when Guzmán drops his wallet and Samu bends to pick it and he looks like he’s been punched in the face at the sight of Marina’s likeness smiling up at him.

“Samu,” Guzmán starts, but his friend just shakes his head and hands Guzmán back his wallet with a sad smile, and it isn’t quite _okay_ , but they’re all getting better.

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, even when he and Nadia fight, when she closes herself off from him and he yells that he can’t read her mind, when he acts out of jealousy and embarrasses her in front of a classmate and she throws it in his face that he’s too impulsive, too reckless, _toomuchtoomuchtoomuch_ , and he storms from the apartment to cool off after Lu screams at them both to _shut the fuck up._

Marina smiles up at him from his wallet, and he can almost hear her voice, _Guzmán, what have you done_ , and he shakes his head and goes home to apologise to Nadia, pressing his _I’m sorries_ into her skin with his lips.

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, and he tucks it into his suit jacket at Nadia’s graduation, and at his own, and he feels her presence there.

There is a picture of Marina that Guzmán carries everywhere, and he decides to frame it when Lu tells them she’s moving in with her girlfriend at the end of their lease, and he and Nadia decide to get their own place with their savings. Their new apartment is bigger, but not by much because Nadia is still in grad school and Guzmán hasn’t been working long.

They hang it in the hall, part of a wall of photographs, and it makes Guzmán smile every time he walks into his house, and he’s greeted at the door by their tabby cat and his smiling sister.

That picture of Marina is the one that Guzmán first shows the ring he bought Nadia, half a decade after they first met.

That picture of Marina is tucked into Guzmán’s tuxedo three years later when Nadia walks down an aisle covered in forget-me-not petals and vows to spend forever with him.

“I love you,” he whispers to Nadia as he leans in to kiss her, _his wife_ , and she places her hand on his chest, new ring glittering, fingertips brushing the space where Marina rests over his heart, and smiles.

“I love you.”

And it’s finally enough.

**Author's Note:**

> did i cry at the last episode? maybe.  
> will i continue to advocate for these poor kids to get therapy? absolutely.  
> was this fic coherent? probably not.


End file.
